Anna Chinn's blog

Hector's dolphins are political animals. Sort of. They
themselves, you have to assume, are blithely unaware their
death rate far exceeds their birth rate and this is the fault
of people and the politics of protection.

There are what, 8000 of them remaining; in the 1970s there
were what, 30,000.

A lemon is rolled on the kitchen bench, pressed under
my palm. The jug boils. A knife's wad of honey is dropped in
a mug. The lemon, its juices primed, is slit open and
squeezed into the mug. Boiling water is poured and the knife
stirs. Finally, a nugget of ginger is tossed into the
vapourous brew.

Normally, when you finish writing a blog post, you snap shut
the laptop, relieved to have got the thing done for the week.
You snap yourself up from the couch, and stretch, and head
off for a bath before bed.

The boy did not understand there had never been a wall. We
were walking past all that concrete and rusty rubble that has
tumbled out of the eroding dunes on Middle Beach, and he kept
referring to the time "when the wall got knocked down".

Crack photographer and ODT illustrations lady Emily Cannan
was in a bad mood one recent night, and not just because she
had arrived at work to find a half-eaten raspberry bun lying
in a slop of cream on her desk. Subeditor Anna, the regular
author of this blog, said, "Ach, you just need to take some
photos, woman!" and off they went for a wander.